England trip part 3: Our hotel room was on the 3rd floor. Here is the view from the window of the bus stop right outside our hotel.
This morning we headed out to visit the Tower of London. We got to walk along the Thames on our way there and did get a picture of Tower Bridge behind us:
Then we got led through the main gate through the Bloody Tower built in 1229:
I took a picture of the iron gate/portcullis as we went under it:
Inside we got to hear about the history of the Tower of London. It was a historic castle that was built on the Thames River in 1066 by William the Conqueror. It is famous for being the prison that held high profile prisoners such as Anne Boleyn and the visiting place to see the Crown Jewels.
This is a marker to show where people were taken to be beheaded throughout the history of the Tower of London:
After the tour with the Yeoman aka Beefeater, we did go in to see the Crown Jewels. They don't allow any photography inside so there are no pictures, but they were pretty amazing to see.
It is legend that if the 6 resident Ravens ever leave the Tower of London, the kingdom will fail, so there are 8 permanent Ravens that are cared for and live at the Tower of London. They are not afraid of people. As we were looking around this one came and landed right on the stairs and stayed there without flinching while people walked around it:
After seeing the Crown Jewels we went to see the collection of arms and armor. It was really interesting. Here's some of the armor pieces we saw:
This collection of armor in the White Tower is one of the oldest and most extensive in the world and has weapons that date back to 11th century. I did come across this interesting item--the Collar of Torment, which was a torture device. It was put around the neck of scolding or wayward wives.
In the middle of the White Tower was the Chapel of St. John. This chapel was built in the 11th century so William the Conqueror could come to worship, but it was not completed until after his death.
There was this interesting weapon was a combination of an axe and pistol.
At the top floor of the White Tower, they had different hands on displays you could try out.
You could try to draw a calvary sword from 1796. They were surprisingly quite heavy:
You could try your sword wielding skills while riding on a horse. None of us were very good at that:
We got to see up close the portcullis/iron gate mechanism in how they raised and lowered it:
This was one of my favorite spots to visit while we were in London:
When we were done seeing everything at the Tower of London, we left to grab some dinner. We walked across the Tower Bridge to get to a restaurant on the other side:
After eating we took a walking tour of the area and our guide was out of the Rick Steve's London travel book. It was pretty to see Tower Bridge lit up at night:
Along our walk we got to see some of the Christmas decorations as well:
On our tour we went to check out the Southwark Cathedral, which is a 1,000 year old church on the south bank of the Thames River in the Bankside district of London.
This is where William Shakespeare's brother Edmund is buried:
We then went on to see the full size replica of Sir Francis Drake's 16th century galleon ship that sailed around the world in 1577-1580. It was named The Golden Hinde. It was closed for a private function so we just got to see the outside of it:
We then walked past The Clink Prison Museum, but it was closed so we didn't go inside. We did learn about the Prison's history, though. It was a prison that operated for over 600 years and held a bunch of different prisoners, ranging from religious crazies and drunks to prostitutes and debtors. Supposedly this is where we get the phrase 'thrown in the clink' (referring to prison) came from.
We then walked past the Globe Theater. This isn't the original location, but it is close to the original location. The original burned down in 1613 and was rebuilt here in 1614 and then demolished in 1644 by the Puritans. It was rebuilt in 1997 as close to the original theater plans as possible--thatched roof and all.
We then caught the bus back to our hotel. We drove past Big Ben, which was lit up in the night, and got this pretty cool picture:
The next morning we got up super bright and early to head out to Stonehenge. We had requested a brown bag breakfast from the hotel and grabbed those on the way out. Since it was early enough, there were no trains or buses running, so Jennifer set up the 2 hour Uber/taxi ride from London out to Stonehenge. We got there before it was opened and ate our breakfast as we waited for our tour to start. Jennifer was able to reserve a special 'Circle' tour back in March, where you got to go and walk up close among the stones.
It was pretty awesome! Our tour group was very small so we got to see a lot. I know it will be picture overload, but it was a really neat experience.
Our Stonehenge bus dropped us off close to Stonehenge and then our guide walked us the rest of the way. He gave us the history and theories about why Stonehenge was built and why it was built here.
Stonehenge was build around 3000 BC to 2500 BC. It is thought to be built by Neolithic farmers, potentially to serve as a burial site, ceremonial site, or astronomical calendar (it is set to follow the Summer and Winter Solstice), but they are unsure exactly what function it provided.
It is mysterious because it showed prehistoric engineering, where they moved stones weighing over a ton and transported them over 150+ miles with very simple means of technology.
It was really cool to get up close:
They have gotten stricter with not letting you touch the stones. I guess back in the 18th and 19th centuries people would carve chunks of rock off or carve their initials or other things into the rocks. Now you are no longer aloud to touch the stones. Here's some old graffiti from Christopher Wren:
Supposedly you can feel the power of the stones if you stand in between and hold your hands up. I didn't feel any different, but I guess a few other people in our tour felt the warmth from the stones. Awesome for them I guess--haha. There were a few interesting people in our tour. Some took their shoes off to walk among the stones barefoot to connect with the power here. Did I mention that it was freezing and raining that morning?! There was another lady who just danced around the stones with flowers in her hair. Anyway, we were just there to get an up close view of the stones, not to necessarily get in touch with any inner power or anything else for that matter--haha!
You can see the dancing lady to the left of this picture. She was...interesting...:
Still not feeling the power, but it was still cool to get so close up to the stones:
When our time was up we got shuttled back to the visitor's center. Here is a small scale model of what the whole site used to look like:
Here's the explanation as well:
After we were finished at Stonehenge we caught the bus and rode it into Salisbury City. We got off the bus at our stop and walked over to see Salisbury Cathedral. Unfortunately it was closed for Christmas program practice. We were able to walk around the grounds, but not inside the cathedral.
It does have the highest spire in all of Britain at 404' tall and the oldest working mechanical clock.
It was build between 1220-1258 in the Gothic Style and has one of the four original Magna Carta documents displayed inside. We weren't able to see that since it was closed, but we were close.
After walking around the cathedral we headed over to the bus stop to ride it to the train station to get back to London. Here we are waiting for the bus:
The 90 minute train back into London brought us back to the tube where we rode it back to our hotel. Here we are on one of the massive escalators around the tube stations:
Later that afternoon we went over to the National Gallery. We got to see a bunch of really famous paintings from van Gogh, Monet, Manet, Seurat, Rembrandt, etc. Here's just a few:
After we finished there we did go to a Patisserie and grab a treat.
I got a pretty lemon Cheesecake:
The next morning we got up and headed over to Hyde Park where we looked at Speaker's Corner. My dad served his mission in England and he spent some time here.
We then walked around and crossed over into Kensington Gardens where we saw the Peter Pan sculpture and walked by the Round Pond. It was fun to walk around here, because I lived close by here when I did my semester abroad. My friend and I would walk here in the mornings for exercise. I would come to sit on the benches here when I needed a break from school life back then.
After that we went over and caught the riverboat transit to get to our next stop. Here we are waiting in line to board:
On our boat ride we did see Cleopatra's Needle, which is an ancient Egyptian obelisk.
We got off at our stop and headed to grab a quick pizza dinner. While walking to dinner we passed by this church built in 675AD, but not everyone was interested in stopping to check it out so we just admired it from the outside:
We then got to our destination the Jack the Ripper Museum. We looked at the museum for about an hour. We didn't get to see the whole thing because we had tickets to go on a Jack the Ripper Walk with a guide, who met us on the ground floor. We then walked around the area as she told us the history about Jack the Ripper and his victims. Living in London back then was in very harsh conditions, which is how he got away with all he did, unfortunately. We did walk through Banglatown, and other different areas where his victims lived and were found.
Our guide was interesting to listen to. She really knew a lot of the history and was able to point out a lot of things on our walk. She even dressed up as someone who lived back then. Here's one of the narrow alleys we walked through:
There is a memorial for one of his victims, Catherine Eddowes, that we got to see and read about. She had been jailed for public drunkeness. An hour after her release she was found murdered, unfortunately.
After our walk finished we came back and finished looking around the Jack the Ripper Museum. After that we headed back to our hotel. Michonne had purchased some 'Christmas Crackers'. Those are paper wrapped tubes you pull apart with a snap. Inside is a paper hat, a joke and a small toy/gift. She had purchased them to bring home to her family, but realized the airline wouldn't let her bring them onboard even in checked luggage so we got to play with them instead. Here's what it looked like:
They were fun. Here we all are after we tried them out:
The next day it was time to come home. We got up early, ate breakfast, packed up and headed to the tube to take the Elizabeth line out to Heathrow airport. It was a good trip, but it is always nice to come back home. It was over a 10 hour flight. Aaron was nice enough to pick us up at the airport. Jet lag is always hard, but it seemed to take me a good week to get back into a normal sleep pattern. I was grateful I was able to go on this trip.
